Read Online Philip Jose Farmer by The Other Log of Phileas Fogg - Free Book Online

be admitted, which meant that he was losing six-pence a day more than he earned.
    Fix did not care about the man’s troubles. After saying good-bye to the valet, he sent off a telegram for a warrant of arrest. He then packed a small bag and boarded the  Mongolia  a few minutes before it left the dock. He also, we may be sure, sent a coded telegram to his superiors in London. He would receive their reply in the telegraph office in Bombay.

 8   
    The  Mongolia  was scheduled to traverse one thousand three hundred and ten miles in one hundred and thirty-eight hours. Fogg ate his four meals a day, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and supper. During this leg of the trip, he did not stroll on the decks, but he did not entirely confine himself to his cabin. If he had one passion, aside from a desire for regularity, it was for whist. This game, the precursor of bridge, was then the rage of England. He found three equally intense lovers of the cards and spent most of his time with them at the table. These were a tax collector on his way to Goa, a priest, and a brigadier-general in Her Majesty’s service at Benares. All were not only excellent players but untalkative, which pleased Fogg. He may have joined them originally to determine if one of them had any message for him from Stuart. But no, all were what they appeared to be, and whist was the only thing in which they were interested.
    Passepartout had informed Fogg that Fix was aboard. Fix, he said, claimed to be an agent for the P & O and was going to Bombay on business. This could be true. But what was his business? Assassinating the two, arranging for their abduction, or what? Neither were aware yet that Fogg was wanted by the law. Fogg was still puzzling over the clipping given him by the beggar woman. He would have to find some means to clarify this, but at the moment he did not know how. He could have sent a message to Stuart at Suez or Aden, where the ship also stopped en route to Bombay. It was certain, however, that Fix would find out to whom Fogg had cabled, and this would not be allowed to happen.
    Fogg had a quiet talk with his valet. He quoted the newspaper article from memory. Passepartout suddenly perceived the likeness between Mr. Fogg and the description of the thief. Why Fogg, for whom the unforeseen did not exist, had not seen this before is inexplicable. The only answer is that it was unthinkable to him that anybody could associate him with anything dishonest. Though he was an Eridanean, he was also an English gentleman. Yet it was he who had pointed out to his Reform Club whist partners that the robber was no robber but a gentleman.
    “What a coincidence!” Passepartout said. “Who would have thought of such a thing occurring? And especially at this time?”
    Fogg was suddenly cured of his blindness. Now that he could perceive the facts un-shrouded by his egotism, he saw exactly what had happened. But Passepartout still thought that it was only an unlucky chance.
    “No,” Fogg said, “far from it. This has been brought about by you-know-whom. One of them was made up to look like me and sent out to steal the money. If we had not left so abruptly, I would now be in jail. Stuart saw what was going on, though I cannot understand why he did not warn me sooner.”
    “Perhaps he only began to think about it after the subject was brought up at the Reform,” Passepartout said. “He had no time to get a message to us at our house. In any event, it would have aroused the curiosity of you-know-whom if a message had been delivered to you. So he chose the beggar woman, who may or may not be one of us. But then why did he himself not deliver the clipping when he said good-bye to us at the station?”
    “Because Flanagan, Fallentin, and Ralph were also there. They seem to be innocents, that is, not you-know-whom, but he did not want to take a chance.”
    “But what could a mere clipping tell you?”
    “He knew that I would soon see the connection. I should have